Unemployment decreased 18,600 to 711,900. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 23,000 to 489,300 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 4,400 to 222,700.

Unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 pts to 5.5%.

Participation rate increased by less than 0.1 pts to 64.9%.

Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 31.1 million hours (1.87%) to 1,695.3 million hours.

Ummm, if you hike rates then the currency will go into orbit (especially when rates around the world are so depressed). Why do you think the currency is so buoyant anyway?

Rates are a precarious thing at the moment. If we hike then currency shoots up and debtors struggle in repayments, but eventually the housing market cools and the bubble is contained. If we cut rates, the currency devalues and private bank rates shoot up because of foreign capital repayment so debtors struggle in repayments, but the asset bubble continues to inflate until a hard landing.

RBA has no idea how to handle these levers, so it sits tight and thinks “Shit, what is going on” until the bright light heading to it turns out to be a freight train. Standard Operating Procedure for central banks, really.

I mean immigration and chinese “investment”/money laundering can continue on indefinitely until their is the political will to stop
And the “social justice”/neoliberal union seems to be in full control of the media and narratives so I don’t see that happening

Just curious, because this has been your thesis for a number of years now and the event horizon seems to be moving further and further away

I these numbers are so good why spending does not go up? why inflation is so low? I am not convinced. I am not saying someone is fudging these numbers but I think people use wrong formulas.
Everyone I talk to say their companies are cutting.

The problem is that these spikes continue to fail to form any trend. Employment growth has zig-zagged back and forth at a low level for some years now, failing to break 0.5% growth at any time and often dipping into the negative territory. Compare this to the time when the stimulus was running or the years before the GFC. We’ve gotten so used to poor employment growth outcomes that we are becoming conditioned to regard weak as normal and a short spike toward normal as great news.

If and when this spike rolls on into a rising trend, then we can start to talk about how predictions of doom and gloom were wrong. Until then, the outcome remains poor

New South Wales and Victoria will be hit the hardest by the 1,400 job cull flagged by Telstra, a move unions describe as an “ambush” on workers.

The telco giant on Wednesday said it will sack around 1,400 employees within the next six months as part of a drive to become “leaner” in the face of growing pressure on earnings from the rollout of the national broadband network and aggressive new competitors.

Telstra axes 1400 jobs
The telecommunications company is expected to make a formal annoucement after it has notifed staff. Vision courtesy ABC News

Almost 90 per cent of the cuts will come from NSW and Victoria, while roughly 172 workers will be culled from Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland combined, Telstra spokesman Jon Court said.

Mr Court said the restructures will affect most parts of the company including Telstra’s retail, operations, government enterprises and services and, to a smaller extent, its media and marketing sectors.

Cuts needed to keep Telstra ‘great’ says CEO
The Communication Workers Union says it will meet with Telstra later on Thursday in a bid to reverse the number of jobs set to be shed.

CWU national president Shane Murphy said the cuts had been in the works for months with no inclination provided to workers.

“We were simply ambushed,” he told AAP on Thursday.

“Workers were caught by surprise turning up to work thinking it will be business and usual and then finding out hours later a number of their colleagues will not have employment over the next few weeks.”

Almost 90 per cent of the cuts will come from NSW and Victoria. Photo: Daniel Pockett
Mr Murphy said some workers were notified in a teleconference on Wednesday while others simply received an email from the chief executive.

“It has been poorly planned, poorly handled and we believe the CEO has a lot to answer for,” he said, adding workers were feeling “vulnerable”.
Andy Penn said Telstra could succeed but “cannot afford to operate as we have always done”. Photo: Jessica Hromas
It is understood workers in positions that are to be cut will have the option of applying for available jobs within the company or taking redundancy.

If they fail to acquire a new role, they can still take redundancy.

Mr Court said retrenched employees could receive up to 80 weeks redundancy pay based on years of service.

Telstra chief executive Andy Penn told reporters on Wednesday the cuts were to keep up with changes in technology, competition and migrating to the NBN.

The telco is facing a $2 billion to $3 billion hit to its annual earnings by 2020 due to lost compensation payments and the access fees it will pay to use the NBN.

It has also committed to spending an additional $3 billion on upgrading its network over the next three years to maintain its competitiveness.

Mr Penn on Wednesday said Telstra could succeed but “cannot afford to operate as we have always done”.

“This isn’t about a billion dollars’ worth in savings but, obviously, we will continue to make better focus on productivity improvements,” he said at a press conference.

In original terms, the incoming rotation group in May 2017 had a higher employment to population ratio than the group it replaced (59.5 per cent in April, up to 60.0 per cent in May 2017), and was lower than the ratio for the entire sample (61.6 per cent). The employment to population ratio increased for the majority of the rotation groups.

The full-time employment to population ratio of the incoming rotation group was higher than the group it replaced (39.7 per cent in April 2017, up to 41.3 per cent in May 2017), and lower than the ratio for the entire sample (41.8 per cent). The growth in full-time employment in New South Wales was partly due to the influence of the incoming rotation group.

The unemployment rate of the incoming rotation group was marginally higher than the whole sample (5.5 per cent, compared to 5.4 per cent), and it replaced a group with a higher rate (5.7 per cent in April). Its participation rate was below that of the sample as a whole (63.5 per cent, compared to 65.1 per cent), and up from the group it replaced (63.1 in April).

There is light at the end of the tunnel for Perth languishing office property market, a leading commercial property analyst predicts.

The Australian Financial Review reports resource-rich Western Australia, which was just emerging from its most severe downturn since the 1990s, was on the rebound, according to David Cannington,research chief at commercial real estate company Investa.

Yes, this is the actual reality rather than the fantasy doomland that gets spouted here. It’s intense boom times ahead in Western Australia just as it is everywhere else in Australia thanks to property investments!! There’s never been a better time to buy!

ANNUAL SEASONAL RE-ANALYSIS OF QUARTERLY LABOUR FORCE SERIES
The annual seasonal re-analysis of the Labour Force series was conducted on estimates up to February 2017. The results were used to improve the estimates for the monthly seasonally adjusted and trend series in the March 2017 issue.
Quarterly series have been updated with this issue, to coincide with May data.